Changes Coming to Fusion 360 for Personal Use - Blog Post & FAQ

[jodom4]

 UPDATE Sept. 25, 2020: STEP Export stays in Fusion 360 for personal use

STEP export will remain available for Fusion 360 for personal use. This removal of STEP export was previously announced as part of the changes to curb misuse of Fusion 360 for personal use by commercial users. This change had unintended consequences for the hobbyist community. For this reason, we have made the decision to continue to allow STEP export for personal, non-commercial users. It remains in product unchanged and will not be removed as other announced changes roll out this October and January.

We want you to know, while the changes to the personal use entitlement were necessary, we remain committed to our community. You will continue to see development and investment in Fusion 360 for personal use.

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UPDATE: There have been lots of discussions on social media and on our forums. We understand the emotions you’re all going through, so in the spirit of clarity, I want to break it down for you with the most accurate information about what is changing, directly from our team. 

Here are 8 quick answers to the most common questions we’ve seen in the community.

1 – Is Fusion 360 for Personal Use still free?

Yes. Fusion 360 for Personal Use remains free. It’s not going away.

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2 – What does the 10 active documents change really mean?

You still keep your data and can have unlimited number of documents (3D design, drawing, PCB) as well as projects (top level folders in your data panel) in your account. 

• Today all your designs and documents are active by default. You can open any design no matter how old or new and they will open. 
• What this change means: 
  • 10 active documents means that you have 10 spots for any document to open and be editable at any given time. All your other documents will be stored in your projects in a new inactive state. They will remain yours, saved in your projects. 
  • When you reach your 10 document capacity, and you want to revisit an older design and open it up, you can do so by deactivating an active document and activating the inactive one to swap places with. Again, you continue to keep all your designs and projects with no limits on how many you can have in inactive state.  
  • PDFs, images, presentations, spreadsheets, etc do not count towards the 10 active document allowance.
  • If you have an assembly with referenced designs in it, the assembly and each reference (if opened) will count as 1 document each. Assemblies can reference active and inactive documents. You will still be able to edit the referenced designs as long as they are also active. If your referenced designs in the assembly are inactive, you can still open your assemblies, but the references will be read only.
  • Electronics Design Library, schematic, 2D PCB count as 1 document.

• How would this work?
  • The interactions of how you do this is still being worked on, and any existing experience around archiving projects from Fusion Team is not indicative of what this new interaction may be, that’s why it’s slated for January 2021. We hope that you understand that we are trying to put limits in place to stop commercial mis-use, while still enabling the vast majority of hobbyists to continue to design and make with little to no impact.

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3 – Can I still machine parts?

Yes. 2, 2.5 and 3 axis milling will still be available in the new Personal Use offering. 

• More advanced manufacturing functionality such as 3+2 axis, 4 axis, and 5 axis milling will only be available in the paid subscription. 
• Toolpath simulation in the Manufacture workspace is not going anywhere and will still be available. 
• Automatic tool change capability will not be available, and rapid feedrate are limited to cutting feedrate.

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4 – Can I still 3D Print?

Yes, STL Export will still be available in Fusion 360 for Personal Use.

• You can still use Fusion 360 for 3D printing with File > 3D print > send to print utility of your choice, File Export > STL or Save As STL

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5 – Can I still laser-cut or do 2D routing?

Save As DXF is still available from sketch. 

• DXF will not be a supported file format from File > Export, but you will still be able to right click on a sketch in the browser and select Save As DXF for your laser cutting and routing needs.

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6 – Can I still export my designs as STEP?

Yes, STEP export will still be available from the in-product File > Export dialog as well as Fusion Team.

Export of STEP will be not be available from the in-product File > Export dialog on Oct. 1, 2020. After Oct. 1,  You can still export your designs as STEP file formats via Fusion Team in your browser. This workflow will remain until Jan 19, 2021. To get to your Fusion Team page, open the data panel, go into one of your projects, and click on the “Open on the Web” icon.

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7 – Does Extension Access mean Scripts and Add-ins?

No, you still have access to scripts and add-ins downloaded from the Autodesk App Store, there is no change here. 

• You will still be able to leverage our API as well as the add-ins available on our App Store.
• Extensions in this context refer to the Manufacturing Extensions available to purchase. These are the capabilities like Probing, 4 axis Rotary, 5 axis Steep & Shallow Strategies that extend your manufacturing capabilities with more convenience, faster machine times, and higher quality finishing.  

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8 – Are there changes to Education, Startup, Trial & Paid Subscriptions?

There are no changes to these offerings.

• Just to clarify, this change does not impact the trial, Education offering, Startup offering, or the Paid subscription. Product updates will continue to be delivered to all of our offerings, additional advanced functionality may be excluded from the Personal offering moving forwards.
• We will continue to support the Personal Use offering with product updates, improvements, fixes, as well as new features moving forward.

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Hey everyone,

As announced on the blog, soon we'll be making some changes to the Fusion 360 for Personal Use offering. We’re making these changes so that we can continue to offer Fusion 360 for Personal Use free of charge, clearly differentiating between what’s available in each offering, which we hope will reduce confusion, misuse, and abuse, whether it was intentional or unintentional. 

If this is your first time hearing about this announcement, we encourage you to check out our blog post for the full announcement as well as our FAQ, where we answer more specific questions in detail. 

> See the blog post announcement

> See the FAQ

[Anonymous]

the thing is they are taking away this much this time, anyone wanna guess whats going to be taken away next time? like completely remove free usage may be? i feel like im sitting in front of a huge fire watching it burn down.

[brianrepp]

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@mroek wrote:

Can you please clearly state if there is even a chance that you will introduce a middle tier that stays below the full product but retains at least the most important functionality that is now being taken away from the personal license? Personally, I am grateful for having had the opportunity to use F360 for free, and I would very much like to pay money to continue using it, but for a pure hobby usage, the full price isn't justifiable. And as I said before, in many countries we pay a heavy VAT on all purchases, and in my country that is 25%. That makes for a rather hefty price tag in the end.

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@mroek - I know you've been a F360 supporter for quite some time, and absolutely appreciate your concern.  We're actively watching conversations all over the various communities and you're not alone in the suggestion of an additional lower-priced offering.  That said, at this point in time, we do not have any plans to introduce a middle tier.

For your particular situation, what makes the personal version unusable?  Or is it the nuisance of the 10 document limit that's the big frustration?

[brianrepp]

@Anonymous  I of course can't make guarantees, but significant thought went into these changes with the hope that it provides the needed differentiation and curbs the abuse.  We understand how disruptive change to the offering is, and a change of this magnitude is not something we intend to make a habit of.

[Anonymous]

So let's talk about alternatives.

.

[Anonymous]

@brianrepp 

I would suggest, at least from my personal "prosumer" user level, that the largest issues, in order, are:

1:  The 10 item limit (which for me simply makes the program mostly useless, almost all of my assemblies have more than ten parts, a cabinet door alone usually has six-plus, never mind the REST of the build, or something like a chair!)

2:  The removal of STEP export (to be able to share my designs with the rest of the 3d printing community, STL is very nearly useless for remixes)

3:  The removal of Rapid for programming.  This is more of a weird annoyance to me.  Removal of the high-axis-count machines that virtually no home-shop will have makes sense, even limitations of some of the more advanced tool-pathing options would make a lot of sense, the kind of stuff you'd use on a big Okuma or something for machining metal.  But rapid motion is something that every CNC, down to the cheapest home-built router kits uses in every program.  Removal there seems completely nonsensical for preventing commercial use, as opposed to just annoying the heck out of a hobbyist user.  

[mroek]

@brianrepp 

I think it is somewhat difficult to state clearly at this point in time what the worst part of the new license is, I will probably need to test it to know for sure. On the short list is obviously the 10 document limit, but also the inability to export STEP is annoying, even though it's not something I frequently use. However, the removal of this feature makes it extremely hard to transition to other softwares as well, so I guess it's part of the lock-in that this change is bringing with it.

As mentioned, I understand that Autodesk needs to make money, and most of us probably knew that some day you would make the free offering almost as bad as one of your competitors (Onshape) did when I ditched them.

I am sad to hear that you are not even going to consider creating an offering for those of us who wants to pay, but just can't justify the price of the full product. It's not that I can't afford it, it's just that I can't justify it for my usage. And crippling it doesn't really change that, it just makes people like me annoyed. Autodesk has gained immensely from all the free users that have made the forums thrive, but I think you'll see the activity going down in the future. It could be that you feel the product is mature enough that you don't need free beta testers any more, which is perhaps true (but I doubt it).

Again, please reconsider the middle tier option, and see what traction you can get from that. Who in Autodesk has decided that you will make more money by alienating and annoying the free users instead of at least giving them a more reasonably priced option? I'm not asking for the full product at a discount, just something that is better than the crippled new personal version. What do you have to lose by testing that concept?

[brianrepp]

@Anonymous  the experience around the 10 item limit is still being worked out, but I'm not 100% certain it will be quite as limiting as you describe for your situation.  I'll pass along the feedback to the team working on it, along with the feedback on STEP & rapid programming.

One other question, if you don't mind related to STEP.  While not as easy as doing it from in-product, would it be helpful if there were to remain the option to export to STEP from Fusion Team?

[Anonymous]

@brianrepp 

I just know in my designs I will be building something like a cabinet that will have a very large number of individual pieces, simply because, say, the left side of the door has two holes where the door pull will be mounted, and the right does not, so common pieces will not be shared.  Even a simple cabinet or chair begins to stack up the part count very rapidly, even if I omit things like fasteners and stuff that I would normally include.  I could definitely understand some kind of limit there, but the ironic bit is that most of the parts I make in my day job don't have ten items on the BOM (hermetic connectors and sealing) whereas much of the stuff I make at home does, simply because I'm making more complex assemblies in my home shop.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure on the alternate STEP route.  I've never used Fusion Team at all, the entirety of my use has been within and on my own PC (and some tiny bit on my tablet when A360 was still a thing).  As long as it did not take a significant number more steps than the current File / Export / STEP path.  Remember, much of the home use here is by folks that aren't going to be necessarily have a high level of experience with this kind of software, and have no formal training.  So making it too complex will probably remove it from the ability of your intended hobbyist user to use, while far less impacting your theoretical commercial pirate.  

[brianrepp]

@mroek - understood.  It's pretty hard to understand how the 10 document limit will impact you without us yet having it clearly defined and you not being able to actually experience it.  If that experience proves to not be too intrusive, and let's say you still had some option to export a STEP (albeit maybe a little less convenient), would you still find it necessary to move to a paid version, or would the free personal tier meet your needs?

Re: the middle tier, I'll of course pass your feedback along.  The entire team, from all levels, are keeping a close eye on all of the feedback from the community, and obviously this has been a popular suggestion following the announcement.

[Anonymous]

No Rapids?  That's just mean.  If I wanted to torture someone that's how I'd do it.

I was really jazzed about building a tool changer and learning how to use the 4th and 5th axis on my machine.  Now I'm just bummed.

[kevinPTMMY]

Regarding getting step files via the web - I was today capturing steps for my designs to avoid the impact of this change and I did it via the web. It is actually quicker in aggregate to do it that way because you don't have to open each design individually. So I'd be ok with that. 

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@brianrepp wrote:

@mroek - understood.  It's pretty hard to understand how the 10 document limit will impact you without us yet having it clearly defined and you not being able to actually experience it.  If that experience proves to not be too intrusive, and let's say you still had some option to export a STEP (albeit maybe a little less convenient), would you still find it necessary to move to a paid version, or would the free personal tier meet your needs?

Re: the middle tier, I'll of course pass your feedback along.  The entire team, from all levels, are keeping a close eye on all of the feedback from the community, and obviously this has been a popular suggestion following the announcement.

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•  

[daniel_lyall]

@brianrepp Can you please run the .stp file export up the chain I have seen a heap of people haveing this as there main problem.

Having an extra layer in fusion team would be a good idea where a free user can pay $100 or whatever to get step export, but people will still rip it off and stuff it for everyone else.

[brianrepp]

For sure @daniel_lyall .  You know as well as anyone that we're always genuinely listening to the feedback

[DavidNeuf]

The biggest hit to my workflow in these proposed changes is the elimination of multisheet drawings. Another person in my hackspace (a former ADSK employee, no less!) used a minimum of 5 drawings just to do basic electronic design and enclosure. And this is hobbyist and hack space stuff. I like designing my woodwork projects and use between 5 and 10 sheets. Often a sheet is printed out full scale to be glued on to some wood to run through a saw, or to place drill holes. The drawing feature offers a substantial number of basic capabilities not available at all in exporting DXF from a sketch. Printing out plans for some woodwork to take to the shop is part of my workflow. 

SketchUp has been the de facto design tool for hobby woodwork. And yet I wanted F360 to work, so I gave it a go. And with the additions of a few add-ons, I enjoy the experience. Killing off multi-sheet drawings drives me to Sketchup/Onshape/FreeCAd/others, and will severely affect some add-in developers. 

[brianrepp]

@DavidNeuf  re: scripts/Add-in's, just to be clear, they're not going away:  https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/changes-to-fusion-360-for-personal-use/?fbclid=IwA... 

[lichtzeichenanlage]

But testing them during development is stupidly complicated now with the document limit. For my last add-in I'm using 8 or 9 test files for regression testing. 

[mnoreke]

Re: If that experience proves to not be too intrusive, and let's say you still had some option to export a STEP (albeit maybe a little less convenient), would you still find it necessary to move to a paid version, or would the free personal tier meet your needs?

I can't speak for others, but for me having STEP available from Fusion Team would be an acceptable headache if the alternative is no export to STEP.

[DavidNeuf]

That's not the point; I knew Add-Ins/Macros weren't being limited under the new terms. Not sure if your post is an attempted distraction or just really naive assumptions.

If the F360 user base evaporates, which it will under ADSK's new approach, the motivation to create or maintain Add-Ins will evaporate even faster.

• Add-In developers selling their product lose their customer base and will therefore abandon existing and future products.
• Add-In Developers doing it for free, will abandon F360 to put their efforts into other platforms, such as FreeCAD.

And while some ADSK developers may have come from the fertile minds of the FreeCAD community, this will lower sentiment among that talent pool and also incentive the open source development community, while attracting open source users. That's already happening in the hours since the announcement in my hacker space community. 

[brianrepp]

@DavidNeuf definitely not intended to offend. Since the announcement there has been quite a fair amount of confusion within the various communities between access to extensions going away, and add-ins.  My apologies for making an assumption, but not everyone has been familiar with the difference.

[cardboard_boks]

No rapids in CAM, Autodesk really going off the deep end here